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User blog:Bane7670/Clone Wars Adventures: What Went Wrong
Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures was a simplistically fun online game on which this wiki was founded and based on the critically acclaimed television series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It had a lifespan of not quite four years that told even more of the adventures (geddit?) of The Clone Wars. The game was run by LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment... neither of which exist anymore, interestingly. While its life was relatively brief, it fostered a community of awesome people and a wholesome Star Wars experience like no other. But sadly, it came to an end before it could reach its full potential. Since I started on The Old Republic, I noticed a lot of things that likely influenced SOE's decisions at that time. It's been on my mind for a while anyway since we just passed the four-year anniversary of its shutdown. Now that I'm done with school and have entirely too much time on my hands, I thought I'd do a quick case study on why this amazing but rather flawed MMO came to such an abrupt end. So please, join me on this journey as we carefully examine the rights and wrongs, the true motivations for this histor... ah screw the academic-y voice. No one's actually going to read this. I'll just lay out the biggest factors for the rise and fall of CWA. Let's start with a basic timeline of CWA's health: *August 2010: Beta is underway and nets quite a few players who enjoy the experience so far *September 2010: Global release; the game receives 1 million registered players within the first week, most of them enjoying the style and content of the game to keep coming back for more *October-November 2010: The game's free-to-play model works well enough to give all players a taste of the fun mini-games and locations, while adding incentive to purchase memberships for the full experience; weekly updates related to recent TCW episodes keep players engaged, employing the tagline "See it in the show! Wear it in the game!" *December 2010: First story-based expansion, the "Geonosis Saga," is released; the appeal of progression-like features and new applications of existing mini-games greatly improves player retention *March 2011: Next mini-game story expansion is released, "Biggest Battles: Ryloth," though only available through a Hasbro promotion, much to the discontent of many players *May 2011: Sony Data Breach: The servers of Clone Wars Adventures are taken offline for over two weeks after Sony detects a massive breach of personal information from their network; SOE compensates players for the hiatus with brand new items and added membership time on the day the servers went back up *July 2011: New mini-game expansion, "Mission on Iceberg Three," that ties in with upcoming season of TCW and features the first original story content in the game; met with widespread acclaim from players *December 2011: Combat system, jumping, and mounts introduced with the first combat zone, "Battle of Umbara," released in conjunction with the launch of The Old Republic; players' approval and retention rate at all-time highs *Spring 2012: New items begin to lose uniqueness as show-based items and mini-games slow down; player discontent grows with lack of new content since the Battle of Umbara *August 2012: New combat zone, "Skirmish on Carlac," gives hope for new and returning players that more mini-game and story-based content will be added *September 2012: Battle Classes introduced, giving the game a whole new progression system that tries to keep players engaged with the promise of improved combat abilities and exclusive gear *January 2013: Crafting is added to a mostly positive response, though player retention waivers as there have been virtually no updates/additions to popular mini-games (the game's core experience) in recent months *February/March 2013: Growing player disapproval as devs announce that the game will move away from mini-games and scripted missions in favor of world-based combat; greater disconnect felt between player base and SOE *April 2013: New combat zone of Felucia is added, though with a new difficulty tier that unbalances combat and features few new activities *Summer 2013: Updates introduce fewer and fewer items per week with hardly any items that players want, and the appeal of Felucia quickly wears off; player retention in steady decline *October 2013: Updates become monthly, casting further doubt on the game's future *January 2014: SOE decides to shut down Clone Wars Adventures *March 2014: As a thank you to the community, SOE grants memberships to all players and lowers the cost of every Station Cash item in the store to 1; despite its decline, players gather both on the forums and in-game to give Clone Wars Adventures a strong send off Revenue The main and official reason behind Clone Wars Adventures's shutdown was money. Like most MMOs at their twilight, CWA was chosen for the chopping block simply because it wasn't making enough money. Not enough players were buying Station Cash and even fewer were buying memberships, and why should they? Content was slowing down, activities were growing stale, and there weren't enough new items in the store to justify spending actual money. For the last third of CWA's lifespan, it seemed like no player suggestions were making it into the game. There was a really big disconnect between players and SOE in general. As a result, player retention dropped substantially towards the end of 2012 (as shown above). The devs just weren't listening to us anymore. So what could they have done better to keep profits flowing? At the very heart of the matter, they could have kept up on the heart of the game: mini-games and cosmetics. While most MMOs see mini-games as side activities, the major games like "Starfighter" and "Republic Defender" were CWA's core. Outfits too added to the immersion of the game universe. "See it in the show, play it in the game!" was the game's foundation. It was a companion to a TV show rather than a standalone experience. Players could watch the show then jump into it online with outfits and games based on the show all while in a hub where they could interact with their favorite characters. Then The Old Republic came along and CWA had to evolve. I'm convinced that's why we got combat in the first place. Don't get me wrong. I loved the Battle of Umbara, one of the best updates we ever got. It balanced with the other aspects of the game, outfits and games, with new features. But then, of course, the new features took over and stomped out the original appeal of the game. THIS POINT IN A NUTSHELL: SOE tried to make Clone Wars Adventures into something it wasn't. Why buy a membership when there's nothing good in the store or in the games? Failure of Felucia Part of the reason that CWA wasn't making enough money was tied to its last major expansion: the Felucia combat zone. For all the work that went into it, Felucia just didn't bring in the revenue it was supposed to. Granted, by the time it rolled around, a lot of us had been disappointed in the game for a while. Players weren't seeing the items they wanted; mostly repeats of what they already had. December 2012 didn't really have the big, ground-breaking update that players were used to from Christmastime (unless you count adding PvP) and most players were bored with the lack of original content. Felucia became what all MMOs should never face: the make-or-break update. Hype was rising on the forums for this new combat zone that supposedly had new and unique features that would keep players coming back for more. Its release was morbidly underwhelming--a few daily activities with little replay value--except that its new difficulty tier wildly imbalanced the combat system. For many players, this was the final nail in the coffin. THIS POINT IN A NUTSHELL: Felucia strayed too far from the other combat zones' aesthetics and the game's overall forumla. They tried to imitate TOR's Daily Areas, overlooking the story-based aspect of that game which made it so successful. Mini-Game Campaigns This ties into the above point so I'll keep it brief. One thing that SOE absolutely 100% did right is mini-game campaigns. The Geonosis Saga and especially Mission on Iceberg Three (for how short it was) were two of the best expansions that CWA ever saw. The story, the familiar characters, the new planets, the new mini-game levels, feeling like you're playing a role in the TV show's events, that's what made this game so amazing for me, and others I'm sure. The best part? A lot of it was done simply by repurposing existing assets into player areas, like Galactic Forces vehicles patrolling around the outpost on Iceberg III. That was so awesome!! Really made you feel like you in the battle, boots on the ground ready to fight! They easily could have done that on a different planet with a new story. But sadly (the cost of voice actors aside), SOE didn't think that kind of content was profitable since it had no replay value. Personally, I don't think that could be farther from the truth, but they decided to end scripted games and mission instances to pursue world-based combat like SWTOR. What they didn't realize is that SWTOR had a mix of both. There was so much potential in those campaigns that was left unfulfilled. Store Quality While items were continually added to the Store, their quality declined as time went on. In fact, "quality" was eventually decided by how unique the gear even was. If it was an outfit seen on the show that players wanted to use, high quality. If it was a recolored version of an existing outfit (known as "repaints"), low quality. SWTOR has a huge variety of outfits largely thanks to a variety of color schemes, which is thanks to the available dye modules. Trying to match that level of customization (and to lower the cost of designing new outfits), SOE churned out a sea of already-released gear in new colors/designs. Clone Trooper gear was easy enough to sell that way. Remember all those weird Clone Commando recolors? Oh how the forums raged... The loss of item quality was balanced by new combat mechanics and areas for a while, but it didn't last. We started getting outfits that no one asked for while the many brilliant suggestions for new items made on the forums went virtually unacknowledged. This is partly explained by the fact that, according to a former CWA developer, there were only four people working on the game in its last few months. SOE couldn't (or perhaps wouldn't) spare the resources to keep the game afloat. Conclusion At the end of the day, CWA was more of a Star Wars dress-up sandbox than a fully-fledged MMORPG (that's Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, for you). The developers themselves openly admitted that they didn't consider their game an MMO, but it wasn't meant to be a Star Wars-y Free Realms clone either. You could get involved in this massive battles or just put on your favorite outfit and build a house. There was something for everyone. It had great potential for more story-based elements, as explained above, but its simplicity is ultimately what sold it. But when you chip away at that simplicity by jamming in more complex combat elements and less unique outfits, the appeal wears off. As a side note (and something that I've thought for a while now), money and player disconnect were the main reasons for CWA's shutdown, but we can't overlook what was happening in the background at Lucasfilm. If Felucia had succeeded and they'd stuck to their original mini-game/story forumla, maybe the game could've carried on for one more year. Maybe. But let's be completely honest: as soon as Disney dissolved LucasArts and cancelled The Clone Wars, CWA didn't stand a chance. Category:Blog posts